Harvard University announced in early July a two-year project to help identify key design elements of a future international agreement on climate change, drawing on the ideas of leading thinkers from academia, private industry, government, and advocacy organizations, both in the industrialized world and in developing countries.
The initiative, called the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, aims to help develop a “scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic” plan to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the current global climate agreement whose first commitment period ends in 2012. The project is funded by a $750,000 grant from the Climate Change Initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and is a joint effort between the University-wide Harvard Environmental Economics Program and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, both housed within the Kennedy School of Government.
The project stems from a workshop last year hosted by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, which brought together 27 leading thinkers from around the world from economics, law, political science, business, international relations, and the natural sciences. Together, they developed and refined six policy frameworks — each an idea that could form the backbone of a new international agreement. These range from a stronger version of the Kyoto Protocol to entirely new recommendations.
